At the sight the truth came in upon me in a clap.
"It's there you're taking me!" I cried.
"Just to the Bass, mannie," said he: "Whaur the auld saints were
afore ye, and I misdoubt if ye have come so fairly by your
preeson."
"But none dwells there now," I cried; "the place is long a ruin."
"It'll be the mair pleisand a change for the solan geese, then,"
quoth Andie dryly.
The day coming slowly brighter I observed on the bilge, among the
big stones with which fisherfolk ballast their boats, several kegs
and baskets, and a provision of fuel. All these were discharged
upon the crag. Andie, myself, and my three Highlanders (I call
them mine, although it was the other way about), landed along with
them. The sun was not yet up when the boat moved away again, the
noise of the oars on the thole-pins echoing from the cliffs, and
left us in our singular reclusion:
Andie Dale was the Prefect (as I would jocularly call him) of the
Bass, being at once the shepherd and the gamekeeper of that small
and rich estate. He had to mind the dozen or so of sheep that fed
and fattened on the grass of the sloping part of it, like beasts
grazing the roof of a cathedral.
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